


Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): The Guardians of the Galaxy

by literally_no_idea



Series: Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH) Main Series [41]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, SDfSH 'verse, Service Animals, Service Dogs, Therapy Animal, Therapy Dog, therapy animals, therapy dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literally_no_idea/pseuds/literally_no_idea
Summary: Mantis tries to keep to herself. She knows that the rest of the team isn’t a fan of her empathic abilities, and she understands that; the more time she’s spent with them, she’s started to let her own emotions develop more, started to try and understand more about the world she hadn’t realized she was so separate from.Despite her best efforts, though, she can’t help wanting to spend time with the team; she wants to be around them, wants to have friendships with them, wants to be a part of their lives. And they seem to want her around too; they constantly try to include her in things, and she appreciates that, but they also sometimes forget that when they touch her, she picks up on their emotions.





	Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): The Guardians of the Galaxy

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to the series, or if you're new here, welcome! This part of the series is about the Guardians and their therapy dog (once again, I know this isn't a service animal, but still. I wanted this.) Enjoy!

Mantis tries to keep to herself. She knows that the rest of the team isn’t a fan of her empathic abilities, and she understands that; the more time she’s spent with them, she’s started to let her own emotions develop more, started to try and understand more about the world she hadn’t realized she was so separate from.

 

Despite her best efforts, though, she can’t help wanting to spend time with the team; she wants to be around them, wants to have friendships with them, wants to be a part of their lives. And they seem to want her around too; they constantly try to include her in things, and she appreciates that, but they also sometimes forget that when they touch her, she picks up on their emotions.

 

A hand on her shoulder here, a handshake or high five there, and she gets a clearer picture of their emotions than she thinks they meant for her to know. They’re more sad than they’re willing to admit; she can feel their joy, their more fleeting emotions, but under it all is a strange layer of sadness, of worry, that she had never experienced living with Ego.

 

Peter’s is buried deepest; it’s a dark, swirling grief that sometimes fades to wisps, but it’s always there, a faint feeling of pain and loss. Mantis has seen this grief come to the surface before, when Peter lost Yondu; he had played every song on the Zune Kraglin gave him four times each in the week that followed, and at night, when everyone else was sleeping, Mantis had heard him in his room, listening to Awesome Mix Vol. 2 at high volume to hide his crying.

 

Rocket’s is almost as deep; heavy, clouded pain, a turmoil of emotions bundled together, shame, grief, loneliness, hurt, doubt, anger, spite, resentment, defensiveness, swirling so far below the surface that if Rocket didn’t talk about his emotions when drunk, Mantis would be the only one who knew about his emotions, but even then, usually the others are too drunk to remember in the morning.

 

Groot’s is buried about halfway down, but it seems to grow, similar to how Groot himself grows; it starts small, just the roots of sadness and fear, and slowly develops, sprouting into more specific emotions. Worry, concern, hurt, anxiety, disappointment, guilt, loneliness, and loss branch off of the roots of sadness and fear, and they seem to wilt and grow over time, depending on what happens in that time.

 

Gamora’s is a bit below the surface, but not very deep; more like she’s consciously keeping her emotions back, holding down burning resentment, flooding panic, whirling self-doubt, and dark, crushing loss. Mantis is constantly surprised by how well Gamora hides that storm of emotions, each one seemingly as powerful as one of the four elements themselves, yet Gamora never visibly shows a single one.

 

Drax’s moves up and down below the surface of his consciousness as fluidly as water; it surprises Mantis, actually, because she’s never met someone whose emotions and memories could be so calmly, casually fluid. Admittedly, she hasn’t known that many people, but even the other people she’s met have never had the ability to just leave their emotions alone that well.

 

That doesn’t mean that Drax’s pain is any less than the others’ pain, he just… doesn’t seem as motivated to repress or incite it in one situation or another. He has such deep, painful loss inside of him that Mantis actually finds it a bit jarring every time they talk, how he doesn’t even seem to acknowledge it.

 

So when they travel back to Earth and meet up with Nebula and her new dog, Quasar, Mantis talks to Nebula about what Quasar does for her, asks for Nebula’s permission to use her psychic empathy to feel Nebula’s emotions.

 

After making Mantis explain why she wants to know, Nebula lets her, and Mantis is amazed to find that Nebula’s emotions have changed drastically since the last time they spoke. Where Nebula used to have pain and loss deeper than Gamora, she now has an underlying sense of warm, blanketing safety. The pain is still there; but it’s softer, less defined than it used to be, like something has worn away at the pain and dulled it.

 

Mantis thanks Nebula for her help, and then she goes to find Natasha; the team had decided to stay on Earth for a little while and stay in Stark’s tower, so Mantis doesn’t have to go far. She heads to the communal floor, looking around for Natasha, but she can’t find her. She’s just wandered into the gym when a voice comes from the ceiling and wall beside her, startling her.

 

“Pardon me, Ms. Mantis, may I assist you with something?”

 

“Who’s there?” Mantis asks, looking up.

 

“My name is JARVIS, I am the AI for Mr. Stark.”

 

Mantis puts a hand against the wall, searching for any emotions. There’s… something, there. It’s not what she’s used to, but there’s definitely some form of being there. “AI?”

 

“Artificial Intelligence. I was created by Mr. Stark, given a name and voice to resemble a former assistant of Mr. Stark’s.”

 

The feelings in the wall turn into something warmer, and it takes a moment for Mantis to identify the emotions in this new being. Fondness. JARVIS must care about Tony. “Oh. It’s nice to meet you, JARVIS. Do you know where I can find Natasha?”

 

“Ms. Romanoff is located on her personal floor. Would you like me to inform her that you are looking for her?”

 

“Yes, please. Thank you,” she says, and JARVIS doesn’t respond, presumably talking to Natasha instead. She tilts her head to the side, still trying to figure out why JARVIS’s emotions feel so… weird, is the only way she can describe it. Like he has emotions, but they’re in some kind of different language that she doesn’t know.

 

She’s staring at where his voice had come from someone taps on the doorway behind her, and she turns to find Natasha standing in the doorway with her dog beside her.

 

“JARVIS said you were looking for me?” Natasha asks, and Mantis nods. She takes a step forward, but stops when she sees Natasha lean backwards, even if it was barely noticeable.

 

“Sorry. I don’t mean to be intrusive. I can only sense your emotions through physical contact, please don’t worry. I just want to know if you can get service dogs for my team.”

 

Natasha frowns. “Who on your team needs one? And for what?”

 

“All of them. They’re very… hurt. They have a lot of emotional pain they do not want to talk about. I don’t want to make them talk about it if they don’t want to, but Quasar seems to have helped Nebula so much, and I want my friends to feel better too.”

 

“Okay. Can you tell me what emotions we’re looking at? Because I’m going to need to train the dog to help them with those things, specifically. Also, how much space does your ship have? You’re going to need space for the dogs, and all of the gear they’ll need. Food, water, bowls, space to move around, that kind of thing.”

 

“We don’t have a lot of space,” Mantis admits, but Natasha just nods.

 

“I think I have an idea. Follow me, I’m going to need something to take notes on.”

 

Natasha leads Mantis out to the living room, grabbing a tablet and pulling up a blank page on it. “Alright. So, what emotions are they each having? And how do they seem to act, when they show those emotions?”

 

Mantis explains, and by the end of their conversation, Natasha agrees that she can get them a dog within the next four months that should be able to meet their needs, so now all Mantis has to do is get the team to stay that long. When they go to get everything they need off the ship, she asks them if they can stay that long, and everyone just shrugs and agrees. Now Mantis doesn’t have to worry about that, and all she has to worry about is getting the actual dog from Natasha.

 

* * *

 

Three and a half months later, Natasha tells Mantis that their dog is ready for them, and Mantis brings the team to the communal floor, having them sit on the couches.

 

“Seriously, Mantis, what’s going on?” Peter asks, and Mantis wrings her hands, smiling nervously.

 

“You’ll have to trust me, okay? I just, I thought this would be a good idea for us,” she says, and Peter frowns.

 

“Yeah, no, you’re concerning me. What is it?”

 

“Natasha?” Mantis calls, and Natasha steps in from the hallway, walking into the room with Lapushka on her right and a beautiful dog with black, white, and light brown fur on her left.

 

“Guardians, this is your therapy dog, Hope,” Natasha says. Lapushka stays standing on her right and Hope sits on her left, tail sweeping across the floor happily.

 

“I… what?” Rocket asks, and Natasha faces him.

 

“Mantis says she’s picked on all of your emotions before, and she’s worried about you all. She saw the work that Quasar’s done with Nebula, and she thought this could help you. Of course, you’re on a ship with limited space, so getting all of you service dogs wasn’t exactly realistic. But getting you all a therapy dog that happens to have the task training of a service dog? That made more sense.”

 

Gamora nods. “So, what does Hope know? What does she do?”

 

Natasha smiles. “Can I let her show you herself?”

 

“I am Groot.”

 

“He says yes,” Rocket translates, “And it’s a ‘fuck it, why not,’ from me.”

 

Drax nods. “Yes, that’s okay.”

 

Peter and Gamora share a look. “Sure,” Gamora says, and Peter nods, so Natasha unclips Hope’s leash from her collar.

 

“Go ahead,” Natasha tells the dog, and Hope runs over to Mantis, leaning against her legs and nudging Mantis’ hands until Mantis starts to pet her. Mantis gasps as the dog’s emotions flood her senses. Hope’s entire energy is warm and comforting, and… loving. She’s exuding joy and love, and it’s so overwhelmingly nice that Mantis sinks to her knees on the floor, wrapping Hope up in her arms.

 

“Good girl,” Mantis tells the dog, and she’s amazed when the words make Hope’s joy and love spike. Mantis sits back on her heels, letting go of Hope. “Go,” she tells the dog softly, and Hope pads over to Peter, putting her head in his lap and looking up at him with adoring eyes.

 

“Wow, okay, you’re sweet,” Peter says, scratching Hope gently behind the ears. “So, what, we just get to have her? We take her on the ship with us?”

 

“Yeah, what about food?” Gamora asks. “She’s going to need enough food to last a long time, and we’ll need to be able to feed her things from other planets, too.”

 

“Tony, Nebula, Mantis, and I worked that out. We’ve made a mixture that should last a pretty long time, and we’ve made a list of foods from other planets that should be safe for her to eat. I say ‘should’ because we don’t know the chemical composition of the foods Mantis and Nebula described, so we’re working off of comparison. But if you introduce things slowly, you should be fine.”

 

“I am Groot.”

 

Rocket sighs. “Yeah, what the hell, why not. We can keep the dog. It’s not like it’s the worst decision we’ve ever made.”

 

Natasha nods, handing Hope’s leash over to Mantis, careful to avoid touching each other. “Well. I’ll leave you all to talk.”

 

Natasha leaves, and Mantis turns to the group.

 

“This was a good decision, right?”

 

Drax shrugs. “It could be a good decision. It could also be the worst mistake ever.”

 

Peter rolls his eyes. “Helpful. This is a good decision, Mantis. Thanks.”

 

Mantis really hopes Peter is right, because she just wanted to help, and she’s hoping this wasn’t too presumptuous.

 

* * *

 

One day, a few months after they’ve left Earth and are back on the Milano, Peter starts acting weird, and Mantis can’t figure out what’s wrong, but she doesn’t want to be rude and question him about it. He’s been distracted, quieter than normal and spending a lot more time in his personal quarters.

 

Mantis is starting to think that she’s going to have to ask him about it when Hope stands, following Peter to his room, and Mantis relaxes, because Hope should be able to help. It takes a little while, but about 40 minutes later Peter comes back out, Hope trotting at his side. Peter’s eyes are red like he’s been crying, but he seems much happier.

 

“Everything okay?” Gamora asks, and Peter nods.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Today’s just the anniversary of my mom’s death. That’s all. It’s stupid, really, it’s been years, but I’m still not really over it.” he stares out the window of the ship, sighing. “I miss her, you know? And after Ego, and Yondu… well. I don’t have my family anymore. I mean, you’re all my family, but--”

 

“But it’s not quite the same.” Gamora stands, joins Peter over at the window. “You’re all my family, but I do still miss my parents. What could have been if Thanos hadn’t killed them.”

 

“Yeah.” There’s a few minutes of silence while Peter looks out at the stars. He turns, taking a deep breath. “Anyway, do we have any other jobs we can do?”

 

“There’s one that has a decent pay out, should be easy, too,” Rocket says, pulling up the details on the screen in front of him.

 

“Cool. Let’s go do that.”

 

* * *

 

Rocket gets really drunk. The job they had taken the day before had gone wrong, and it had almost looked like Groot was going to die, and it had left Rocket completely shaken, worried that he was going to lose his best friend. So when they get back to the ship, Rocket drinks an unsafe amount of alcohol, and starts scream-crying at everyone, aiming his gun at everyone in turn to keep them away from him.

 

“Touch me and I’ll shoot you, Quill!” he shouts, shaking with the effort of holding himself back. “You wanna mock me? I’ll make sure you can’t mock anything ever again!” Rocket’s just started to raise the gun towards Peter’s chest when a blur slams into Rocket, knocking him over and sending his weapon flying off to the side.

 

“What the fuck!” Rocket struggles under Hope’s weight. “Get off me! Are you fucking kidding me!”

 

Hope stays laying on Rocket, licking the top of his head like she’s trying to groom him, and Rocket just… stops. He takes a shaky breath, pushing at Hope’s chest, but when she still doesn’t move, he just lays down, covering his face with his hands and sobbing. “Fine, fuck you, you know what? Whatever. Whatever. I don’t even care. Fuck.”

 

Everyone watches as Hope slowly moves to lay down beside Rocket instead of on top of him, resting her head on his chest as Rocket slowly drifts to sleep, exhausted from his outburst.

 

Mantis is just glad that Hope was as helpful as she had imagined.

 

* * *

 

On another job, they’re sent to help find and rescue a girl from the people who had kidnapped her, and the person who hired them either didn’t know or didn’t care to explain the actual details of the girl’s kidnappers.

 

When they find the girl, she’s in some kind of combat training room, fighting off four attackers at once. All four attackers turn when the team enters, and Gamora takes them out quickly, incapacitating them.

 

“Sora?”

 

“That’s me,” the girl, probably in her early teens, answers. “What can I do for you.”

 

“We’re here to take you home,” Peter says, and Sora hesitates.

 

“Really? Is this. Is this another test?”

 

Gamora kneels down so she’s face to face with Sora. “This isn’t a test. I’ve been where you are. It’s a terrible place to be. We’re going to take you home, to your parents. Your real parents. Not these people. I can’t convince you this isn’t a test. I know that. But you have to trust us.”

 

Gamora stands up again, holding out a hand. Sora takes it, and the team leaves. They get Sora home to her parents, and both Sora and her parents sob as they hug, glad to finally be back together. The team takes half of the actual amount that the parents had offered for the job, and they go back to the ship.

 

They’re sitting around in the kitchen, having dinner, when Hope walks up to Gamora, pawing at her leg and whining. “What’s wrong?” Gamora asks the dog, and Hope just nudges her hand, still pawing at her leg until Gamora crouches down low enough for Hope to jump in her lap, causing Gamora to drop down to sitting on the floor, Hope laying across her legs.

 

“What--” Gamora starts, but Hope sits up, licks her face once, and then lays back down on Gamora’s lap. Gamora starts to pet Hope, and within a few minutes she’s hyperventilating, clinging to Hope like she’s worried she’ll completely fall apart if Hope moves.

 

The team watches, in varying degrees of shock, until Gamora finally gets her breathing back under control, looking up. “Sora reminded me a lot of myself,” she says quietly. “I was already training for combat at ten years old. It hurts to know that this is still happening to other kids.”

 

There’s not much anyone can say to that, so the team just moves to sit on the floor with her, continuing dinner from the floor, Hope still being a warm, comforting presence in Gamora’s lap.

 

* * *

 

Mantis can’t begin to explain how grateful she is to Natasha for Hope. With Hope’s help, the team has slowly started to become calmer and more confident, and Mantis can tell even through the briefest contact with her teammates that Hope is helping to soften the pain of their emotions.

 

Hope’s been helping Mantis a lot, too; when Mantis uses her powers, both intentionally and accidentally, to feel other people’s emotions, she often needs comfort after, and Hope has such a calming, soothing presence and such steady, positive emotions that it always helps Mantis, gives her something to ground herself after a particularly difficult day.

 

Mantis gets a chance to thank Natasha when the team manages to get their picture taken as a group, Hope sitting in front of them and smiling with the goofiest dog smile on her face. Mantis sends the picture to Natasha using the communicator Tony had designed for the team to use to communicate back to the heroes on Earth, with the caption “thanks for giving us Hope.”

 

Natasha sends back a heart emoji, and even without Natasha saying anything directly, Mantis is pretty sure she understood Mantis’ double meaning.

**Author's Note:**

> Therapy animal facts of the day:
> 
> -Therapy dogs are the most common therapy animal. Therapy dogs DO need to be certified.
> 
> -Therapy dogs can only go into places that have granted them permission to enter; therapy dogs do not help their handler, they just provide love and comfort to the people they visit.
> 
> -Therapy dogs often go to hospitals, retirement homes, inpatient facilities, airports, and college campuses during finals week, as these are all places where the people there tend to be stressed and in need of comfort.
> 
> -Therapy dogs do not have public access rights, they do not have rights to no pets housing under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) or the right to be on airplanes for no additional cost under the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA).
> 
> -Therapy dogs are not task trained, but they are trained in a variety of commands to be calm and relaxed when people pet them, and to become certified they have to complete a certification test with a qualified therapy dog organization.
> 
> With that said, if you'd like to see drabbles and notes related to this series or want to talk to me about this series or anything else, you can find me on tumblr [ here](https://servicedogsforsuperheroes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> As always, thank you for reading!!


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